At present, a server and a storage device are connected by using a Fiber Channel (FC) or internet Small Computer System Interface (iSCSI) generally, and data interaction between the server and the storage is implemented based on a SCSI protocol. When needing to read data on the storage device, the server delivers a SCSI read command. A Host Bus Adapter (HBA) connected with the server converts the command into corresponding optical or electrical signals, and the optical or electrical signals are transmitted to the storage via an optical fiber or an Ethernet link. The storage converts the received signals into a small computer system interface (SCSI) command and returns a response result of the command to the server along an original channel after processing the command, thereby completing a read-write operation.
As the processing capacity of a central processing unit (CPU) is increasingly strong and cores are increasingly growing in number, the trend of putting the server and the storage into the same hardware system gets stronger and stronger, which not only may bring about advantages in cost and management, but also is of positive significance to the reduction of power consumption.
In the prior art, the server and the storage are quickly combined together by using a virtual machine solution. A virtual machine is a software stimulated complete computer system which has functions of a complete hardware system and operates in a fully isolated environment. Generally, the virtual machine may configure virtual hardware, install an operating system, and so on as needed.
Unification between the server and the storage may be implemented in one physical host by using the virtual machine, but because there are two virtual machines (the server and the storage each correspond to one virtual machine) in one physical host, there is a need to simulate the operation of two operating systems via the software, and to allocate memory for the two virtual machines. Therefore, a large amount of system resources are consumed. Meanwhile, memory copy during data transmission between the server and the storage also consumes a large amount of the system resources, so that the system performance is affected.